BART Tips to Get You Through Your Commute

Whether you drive or take public transportation, the Bay Area is one of the biggest commuting cultures in the country. Currently, I spend every morning and evening commuting from Livermore to San Francisco and vice versa. In order to achieve this feat in a (often sometimes infrequently) timely manner, I must rely on Bay Area Rapid Transit. To steal a Benjamin Linus quote from the series Lost, “BART is a fickle bitch.” But never fear, dear readers, we’ve got the tips to help you survive your hellish commute in one piece.

Parking

Before you even begin your journey, you must pass through the Gates of Hades sometimes known as BART parking. As you know, there are two types of parking for BART: Daily Fee and Monthly Permit parking. Depending on your BART station of origin, a monthly pass could run you between $85-$200. But it’s absolutely worth it. Daily parking runs $5 per day so if you commute daily, the monthly pass is usually cheaper than daily parking. Additionally, you’re practically guaranteed a spot. If you do not need a monthly pass, get to BART early as the Daily spots fill up by 7:45 a.m. in most places. If you can’t get there early, there’s a relatively little known third option: Reserved Daily Parking. In order to utilize this advance-reservation feature, you’ll need to print out a new pass for every single day you use it in addition to paying in advance. Or you could just chance it and run up a nice stack of parking tickets like yours truly.

Once you find parking, the hard part really begins: getting a seat during rush hour.

Getting a Seat

Even with 10-car trains, it’s sometimes impossible to get a seat during commuting hours. For instance, by West Dublin station (one stop into the Dublin/Pleasanton line) there are usually very few seats left. And if you board at Montgomery/Embarcadero after 5, p.m. you’re definitely standing the whole way home. While the front and back cars are always the least crowded, there is a sure fire way to get a seat: take a train going in the opposite direction until you’re out of the body traffic. Since you only pay based on entry/exit at the stations, hopping trains is easy and cheap. Grab a train heading for Daly City and get off after 16th and Mission. Sure it might set you back 30 minutes, but your tired body will thank you as sit on those vinyl seats caked with…whatever that is…

Clean a Seat

This is one tip that I’ve only recently started practicing. The vinyl seats BART installed a few years back are great for maintenance and easy to clean at the end of the day. But during the day, they pool all kinds of liquids: soda, water, chocolate (we hope it’s chocolate). So many perfectly good seats remain unoccupied because they’ve been desecrated by the commute. Bring a pack of wet wipes with you in your bag and have them ready when you board. I got a great seat the other day by simply wiping some hot chocolate off a seat (seriously, I’m really hoping it was hot chocolate).

You do NOT want to be stuck on BART with a dead phone.

Charge Your Phone

This may seem like a silly and obvious suggestion but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been trapped standing between a plethora of overheated commuters who are wondering why God hates them enough to stuff them in a tin can with low air supply at 5:45 on a weekday… and my phone dies. No music. No texting. No articles about Ivanka Trump’s clothing line. This is millennial purgatory. Don’t get caught here.

Be Polite and Courteous

All too often, we get caught up in our own commuting lives and forget that the people around us are people. Give up your seat for someone who needs it more than you, even if it’s not in the “designated area.” Take your backpack off and put it between your feet so you aren’t slamming into people like the Titanic into an iceberg (too soon?). Don’t talk on your phone loud enough that people have to pretend they can’t hear that your girlfriend was texting John again even though she said she wouldn’t and you wish that he’d just stay out of your relationship because it’s been going so well since you got back from Sonoma. Be polite, be human. We need more of that.

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